GetYourGuide CEO Johannes Reck: Skift Global Forum 2013

06.10.2023 - 20:03 / skift.com / Selene Brophy

Today’s travelers are in pursuit of emotional engagement, meaningful connections, and memorable moments, and AI is going to be a pivotal tool in fulfilling these desires.

That’s according to Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide CEO and co-founder, at the 10th annual Skift Global Forum. Reck encouraged businesses to integrate experience-driven strategies, which he believes will be at the heart of why consumers travel going forward.

Watch the full keynote address made by Reck:

Johannes Reck: Good afternoon, New York City. Thank you so much for having me.

My name is Johannes Reck and I’m the CEO and co-founder of GetYourGuide, the globally leading marketplace for travel experiences.

Now in this talk, I would love to talk to you about the travel experiences category and what awaits us over the next 10 years just as how AI is actually transforming and augmenting how experiences actually work.

But before I get into the details, let me give you some context on our market.

The travel experiences market is a $320 billion market. So that’s all of the things that actually people do when they travel, from attraction tickets, so think about the top of the rock or the edge observation deck here, all the way to the Statue of Liberty Cruise that I did last night with my team or all of the other fun things like a Brooklyn Pizza tour that you can do here in New York City.

So all of that is $320 billion a year. A massive market that is fast-growing at a clip of more than 10% per annum. Now all of that sits squarely into $1.4 trillion market of at-home experiences. So this actually goes beyond travel, and this includes things like the New York Yankees, for instance, that you might want to do on the weekend or something like the cinema or even the local spa salon.

So this is a monumentally large market, one of the largest untapped markets and consumer internet to the present day. And what’s even most striking about this is provided by more than 850,000 businesses worldwide.

So let’s take a look at these businesses and who they really are.

On average, they employ less than five people, so really small, medium-sized companies, and they welcome fewer than 5,000 guests any given year. Those are not businesses that have large operational departments or engineers.

And what’s most striking is that only roughly 30% of the transactions in our space are being transacted online right now outlining the opportunity over the next 10 years that leading marketplaces in the experiences economy like GetYourGuide have.

Now, let’s take a look at this from the lens of the consumer.

The consumer, when they think about experiences have three things in mind. Number one is connection, emotion, and unlocking unforgettable memories.

And all of